Inner Circle Wrap-up

Inner Circle has come and gone now. Wow, the last couple of months have flown by and I am glad the event is over now. The pace I was maintaining was not sustainable for too much longer and it is good to have some rest. I also needed a rest from the Roost. I was pooped. I was burned out. So the dust has settled let’s have a recap of what happened.

I entered at GW West Edmonton Mall. I’ve attached a link to their Facebook page so be sure to check out more photos. Some of mine turned out to be blurry and between mine and the stores photos you should get a good idea of the competition for the day.

There were only four participants for the event. Kevin, Dave and I all capped at eighteen units/characters and Konstatin was able to pump out twelve. Had he capped out it would have been a four way race for the store. The race was close and it was determined by the most customer votes, which was worth twenty-five points.

Everyone had a fully painted army and a display board to match the army. There was no runaway with the customer vote either. All four of us were pulling in votes and it’s good to see the best that the store had to offer. The quality of painting of the participants was far superior to any Armies on Parade that I have been involved with in the past.

I’m going to present the armies to you now. This will be in ascending order from fourth to first.

Konstatin

Konstatin wnet with a Deathwatch vs Necrons. I really liked his Transcendent C’Tan. For me that was the highlight on his board. Konstantin came out with the best display board award.

Dave

Dave entered a 30K Space Wolves army with the Burning of Prospero as his theme. Personally I thought Dave had the best display board. The light colours made it easy to see everything and provided a strong contrast with the Space Wolves.

Turkadactyl

This race was close and I’ll explain more after I show mine and Kevin’s armies. I’ll be the first to admit that my board was lacklustre compared to the others. Armies on Display for GW West Edmonton has never seen elaborate display boards. I wasn’t expecting the quality of display boards from my competitors. I underestimated how much of a important role the board would play and I’ll expand on that thought more in a bit. I was chatting with a friend last night and he gave me some good feedback to consider for the future.

Another friend suggested Cawl being placed in a more prominent location rather than the back of the board. The board had four levels and a special character was placed on each level. I pictured Cawl at the pylon and the pylon seemed best suited at the back. I never played around with options. I pictured where I wanted the models but never experimented with a different arrangement. Hindsight is 20/20 and a lesson learned for next time.

I did win the best themed list, an award I am quite proud of. I took my list out of Fall of Cadia and it gave me a great reason to paint the Triumvirate of the Imperium and some Inquisition models that have sat in my closet for too long.

Kevin

I have to apologize to Kevin. On Twitter I credited his army to Trevor, but I clearly got his name wrong. I think I mentioned Kevin’s army earlier on in the Inner Circle campaign. I saw his army and knew that I had to be at the top of my game. The white robes with cracked earth bases was very striking and eye catching. Kevin also produced a bang up conversion with his Imperial Knight. Kevin utilized a Skitarii force supported by an Imperial Knight and four Assassins.

I’ve attached the scoring sheet on how entries were scored. Sorry, it’s a little small.

Once a specific level is reached it doesn’t matter how much more detail goes into the model. The extra level of detail may attract more customer votes. Conversion points were easy to score. A unit was considered converted if half of the unit rounding up had a conversion. A conversion could be classified as something as simple as a bit from another kit that was glued to the base. Some of you may be thinking, “That’s not a conversion!” I completely agree but for official scoring my conversions were Astra Militarum tank bits glued to bases. Kevin’s Imperial Knight was a true conversion.

If this event is run again in the future I think a change has to be made to scoring conversions. If you looked at my army I don’t think conversions is the first thing that will come to mind and probably not at all. I also think more points should be scored for a masterclass level of detail. I also disagree with the amount of bonus points that were given to attending the three events. I went into this assuming that participating in the three events was essential to win and it was at my store. As a shift worker it was tough to make a couple of these. I designed lists to be in and out as quick as possible. That’s not exactly fair to my opponent who may be looking for a longer game. For an event that is based on showcasing models there were a lot of points allocated to playing games. Three months is a tight amount of time to assemble and paint an army and now we have to squeeze in some events (side note, I tortured myself and did my assembly and painting in two months since I wanted to finish some Sylvaneth). Sure I can enter models that were painted before February 11, but they only score one point per unit. Models painted after can score multiple points per unit.

On the score sheet I was ahead of Dave by 14 and Kevin by 23. The customer vote was worth 25 points, which would go to the person who won the most customer votes. Konstatin was out of the running since he only completed the 12 units was more than 60 points back. The vote came down to the wire and just before voting closed Kevin received one vote to break the tie with me. Hat tip to his wife for breaking the tie. That gave him 25 points and he ended up two points ahead of me. Wow, that was a nail-biter.

Five Finalists

Five finalists were chosen and flown to Texas for a one night, one day event. The States were sectioned off into four regions and one Canadian vied for the final spot. Here are the links to the five national finalists:

Anton Hand– No one expects the inquisition! Lots of conversions to make the grim dark proud.

Trevor Trentacoste– Trevor made use of many armies for his entry. He used Eldar, Deathwathc, Blood Angels and Adepta Sororitas to name a few.

Nick Jones– I’m saving Canada for last. Nick entered with the Genestealer Cult. I’m not too sure what project took longer- the models or the display board.

Congratulations to everyone who participated, to the store winners and especially to the five finalists. I’m not going to lie, I wanted a finalist position. My emotions were a little raw for a few days after the event. I invested a lot of time and was hoping for the best. I didn’t achieve the end result I hoped for but at the end of the day I gave it my best shot and that’s all I can ask for. I was able to paint some models that have been in storage for a millennium. That has given me some hope that one day my Inquisition army will be completed.

I’m still enjoying my hobby vacation time. I still need some time away. I didn’t expect this much of a burnout with all that painting. It is summer though and I usually wind down with hobby stuff around this time.

I’ve been plenty busy though. We move into our new place tomorrow. that’s awesome! Our old house sold within a few days and a bidding war to boot! That’s awesome. I started my own part-time business on the side. A steep learning curve but I’m enjoying the process. An odd time to start it in the middle of a house sale and move but the timing seemed to work. My work vacation starts today. That’s awesome. Time to get settled in to the new house.

I’m not too sure when I will be posting on a regular schedule afain. I don’t want to rush from burnout. That will only make posting seem like a chore then. August perhaps? Here’s what’s on tap when I do return:

Happy birthday to the Roost. It’s still plan on doing a birthday post. It’s a wee bit on the belated side now. I want to share on the past year on the hobby and personal side and what to expect in the next year.

Inner Circle finished projects. I’ve posted a lot of WIP. I have to showcase the completed models.

Spartember. NafNaf and I discussed a hobby challenge to assemble a aspartan Assault Tank during the month of September. Look for the official invite.

Kevin knew what he was doing with his list. I chatted with him about it. The Knight was the centerpiece, the lure to bring the eyes in. On top of that the conversion was amazing. I’m inspired to try that same conversion.